The Scent of Cedar
by Vanillusion
Summary: (Draco/Lucius, Draco/Snape) Nightmares can happen with your eyes wide open... [rated R for serious non-con, violence, and angst. very much slash. Read at your own discretion.]
1. Behind The Armoire Door

Authors Notes : This is not a sensual vignette. This is not a tale of romance. This is not a happy story, period; in fact it's rather sick, and if you have the slightest distaste for slash, pedophilia, or incest - PLEASE. Leave now. I understand the sheer perversion of the events to follow. I wrote them anyway; because fiction isn't always pretty, or pleasant, or meant to warm one's heart. You have been warned. Use your discretion.   
  
***  
  
The Scent of Cedar  
  
[ colloquial title : Behind the Armoire Door ]  
  
Someone was talking to him. Someone with a high pitched, nervous voice was talking very fast, and very close by. The words had fangs; they slipped through the outer layers of Draco's restless slumber, biting into his subconscious like a snakebite so that he awoke in a cold sweat.  
  
"Master Draco? Your father wishes to see you in his chambers…"  
  
He didn't want to open his eyes. If he just pretended that this was part of his dreams… Draco rolled over, pulling the blankets over his head and curling up in a tight little ball beneath them. "Go away, Tzench," he muttered to the house elf, who was peering in through the gap in the bed curtains with wide, watery eyes. There was a cold, sick feeling in the pit of his stomach, and he closed his eyes against it. He didn't want to see his father, now - or ever again, for that matter.   
  
School vacations were Hell, for Draco. He spent the whole two weeks leading up to them telling anyone who would listen how wonderful his holiday was sure to be, and how very pleasant it would be to see his parents again, and how Christmas at his family estate was a celebration unlike any other in magical Britain. He described it all the way that he wanted it to be; with a mother and father who welcomed him home singing him praises and showering him in gifts, when in truth, Draco's life at Malfoy Manor was not a life at all, but a waking nightmare.  
  
He could not remember a time when his father had loved his mother. Perhaps he never had. Narcissa had been a brood mare for the Malfoy family line, and now that she had produced the desired number of children Lucius had put her out to pasture; leaving a wing of the mansion entirely under her delegation and never venturing across it's threshold. Lucius did not find it necessary to beat her, as long as she was not underfoot, and Draco had not seen her in nearly a year.  
  
But his father was omnipresent in the household, and for Draco, there was no escape within these walls. His sisters were grown and gone, and there was only him, now - the soul receptacle of his father's 'affections'. Summers were never-ending, beneath this roof; a steady, violent flow of Lucius's temper, and Draco was nearly always the object of it. What he had done to earn this dubious position, he would never know; it had simply always been so, ever since he could remember. Lucius hadn't given a damn about Jezebel or Isadora; daughters had been nothing but a disappointment to him. He'd beaten them right along with the rest of the household, of course, but he never crept into their chambers at night as he had Draco's…  
  
At first it had been the Big Bad Secret; no one could ever know what happened behind the drawn curtains of that four poster, and the few times that Draco had thought about telling someone, he'd gotten sick to his stomach before he could even put the words to order in his head. But now? Now it was an all out war, father-against-son, and Draco wasn't winning. Now all of Malfoy Manor rang with his own screams after dark, and there was no one here to hear it.  
  
"Master Draco must come quickly, sir, Master Lucius demands it…" The house elf was shaking him by the shoulder, now, a note of panic in his voice. "Please, sir, do not make him wait!"  
  
Draco rolled over and shoved the elf away from him so violently that Tzench flew off of the bed and landed on the stone floor of the bedchamber with a resounding 'thud' and a high-pitched squeak. Pushing the bed curtains back, he peered beyond them. Nothing but blackness met his eyes - Merlin only knew what time it was, or how long he'd been asleep - it didn't feel like very long at all since he'd lain down, stressed and exhausted from the trip back from Hogwarts to this prison that he had to call home. He had prayed in vain to no particular god that his father would leave him in peace, at least for this first night.  
  
But now it was half-past-who-knew-when, and the house elf was cowering against the wall, gazing at him with terrified yet expectant eyes. He had to go. If he didn't go, Lucius would come after him, and it would hurt twice as badly when he did. His hands already trembling a bit, Draco drew his robe on over his pajamas and pulled it tight around himself, shivering anyway. Deathly cold in the mansion tonight - the air of the cavernous bedchamber hung thin and still, like the air inside a mausoleum.   
  
"Go tell him that I'm coming, then," he said, trying to keep his voice even.  
  
The house elf bowed so deeply that his thin, pointed nose touched the floor, and scurried from the room. Draco followed the echoing pitter-patter of his little feet out the door, and down the long, high vaulted upper corridor of Malfoy Manor. Twisted gargoyles wrought from dark, heavy stone leered down at him from the walls, the flicker of intermittent torchlight casting ugly and foreboding shadows across the crevices of their faces. The marble floor was freezing beneath his bare feet, but Draco barely felt it; moving with slow, automated steps, he made his way past the grim-faced, fading portraits of his ancestors - a few of whom chuckled mirthlessly at him under their breath as he went by. Someday, he thought to himself… someday when his father was dead and gone, and this cursed place was his, he would burn every single one of those paintings. He would wrench them from the walls with his own two hands and throw every one of those sneering, smirking faces into the flames. He would save Lucius's portrait for last, and spit on it before he burned it to a cinder…  
  
With a startled rush of panic, he realized that he had reached the doorway to his father's private chambers. The heavy mahogany doors had been left ajar; there was a warm orange glow creeping through the opening, and the smell of burning cedar. Something lurched very deep inside Draco's stomach as the scent hit his nostrils; his father always burned cedar, and the sweet perfume was a strong and sickening reminder of what he was about to face beyond those doors. The smell of cedar and warm silk sheets, the smell sweat, the smell of tears, the coppery, metallic scent of blood…  
  
"Come inside, Draco," said a silken, icy voice from beyond the doors, "you've kept me waiting far too long already."  
  
A frozen surge of fear shot down Draco's spine - quite suddenly his feet seemed glued to the floor. There was no chance to run, now; he should have done it when he had the chance - turned right instead of left out of his room and run until he was out the front doors, past the front gates, away from Wiltshire forever. Now he didn't have a hippogriffs chance in hell of escaping the horrors that he knew were to come. Dragging one leaden foot forward, then another, he forced himself over the threshold by sheer willpower alone, padding silently into the room…  
  
Lucius's chambers were spacious, lavish, and riddled with shadows. The ring of light cast from the huge granite serpent's head that was hearth seemed small, and though the cedar fire burned vivaciously its glow did not even reach the adjoining walls. Draco could only catch the faintest glimpse of the mammoth canopy bed against the far wall; the gleam of a high polished ebony post, and no more. That bed was the maw of Hell, for Draco; beyond those shadows and green velvet bed hangings hid the most horrible memories of his life…  
  
His father was waiting for him; sitting in a high backed velvet chair of the same hue as the bed curtains with a glass of wine in one hand, and his eyes on Draco.  
  
The steel colored gaze ran over him smoothly in the fire light; up, down, then up again, and Draco nearly shivered again. Lucius raised one fine, pale eyebrow, and said very quietly, "You're late."  
  
"I'm sorry, sir."; the whisper left Draco's lips automatically. He could feel the heat of the fire against his back, but he was still freezing, freezing. It was as though he had never left the Manor at all; never gone back to Hogwarts, never left for a second… he had been in this very room just yesterday, or so it seemed, and no time had passed between then and now…  
  
"You have not been home yet twenty-four hours, and already I see the signs of Dumbledore's softness in you again. Does he let you show up to class when you please, then? Do you simply *choose* whether or not to come when a superior calls you?" Lucius had folded his hands very properly before him. Now he was regarding Draco with raised brows, and a look of mock earnest that did nothing to conceal the razorblades in his eyes.  
  
"No, sir," Draco said quietly, the familiar numbness creeping down his spine and into his chest. It would be worse if he didn't answer…  
  
"This will not do, Draco. This will not do at all. Your grades this semester have been less than tolerable. Your conduct reports are reprehensible. And now you keep your own time table under my roof." Lucius stood up, the shadows from the fireplace dancing ominously over those pointed, chiseled features, and peered down at Draco from this new height. "You are a Malfoy. You will act as a Malfoy. It is time that you learned what is expected of you."  
  
Draco kept his eyes on the marble floor beneath his feet, but he was swallowed now by the shadow of his father, as Lucius stepped 'round behind him. It was bad enough when his he wasn't angry, bad enough when he was simply bored…  
  
"Disrobe," said Lucius.  
  
Nightmare.  
  
Time seemed to ebb away like the recession of a wave, leaving Draco suspended behind it. The chamber seemed to close in around him, surreal yet somehow sharpened, and the crackling of the fire seemed very far away. He had not told his hands to move, but they had anyway - removing his robe with deft and trembling fingers, unbuttoning the shirt of his pajamas as though they were not his own fingers at all, but something distant and remote and under Lucius's control. There was no Hogwarts, now; no cool and quiet Slytherin dormitory, no high-set old four poster bed with nothing but safe, warm silence behind it's curtains. There was only the cold air against his back, now, down his hips and thighs as his pajama pants slid to the floor, and the horrible, creeping sensation of Lucius's eyes caressing his naked body. Shivering, Draco hunched his shoulders and ducked his head, drawing one knee up to cover himself.  
  
Five long, icy fingers caught his jaw in an iron grip. One moment Lucius had been behind him, the next he was wrenching Draco's head up so that their faces were but inches apart. "Stand up straight." Lucius whispered through gritted teeth. "Cowardice is unbecoming. I will not allow it." And with that he released the boy, stepping back a few paces yet holding him firmly with his eyes.  
  
Draco swallowed hard and kept his head up, squaring his shoulders and setting both feet beneath them. The hard, cruel eyes on him were nearly as bad as the hard, cruel touches that he knew would follow soon enough. It made him squirm in his own skin. At least they eyes couldn't get inside him…  
  
"You've been eating?"  
  
Looking anywhere but at his father, Draco nodded. "Yes, sir."  
  
Lucius dragged his eyes over the slender, delicate frame of his son, and sneered a bit. "You could have fooled me." Draco set his jaw and swallowed again, trying not to think about anything at all. He'd always been too small for Lucius's taste, and too pretty. Always, always too pretty.   
  
His father paced in a long, slow circle around him, his words a silky yet frozen. Drawl. "Do you know how long I waited for you, tonight? Seventeen minutes, Draco. My time is not yours to waste." The languid footsteps paused somewhere behind him.  
  
And then Draco heard a sound that set his teeth on edge; the rusty hinges of Lucius's armoire door.  
  
Everything that hurt lived behind the armoire door. Everything that left bruises and welts, everything that made him bleed; everything that held him down or stretched him open or had sharp edges…   
  
"An eye for an eye, as the old saying goes," said Lucius. "I believe that seventeen lashes ought to be sufficient. You will count them off; do not lose track, or we will start over from the beginning. Understood?" - some wretched instinct nodded Draco's head for him - "Very good. You know what to do."  
  
There were exactly eleven and a half paces from Lucius's chair to the end of the canopy bed. Draco had counted them long ago. He knew each and every one of them by heart, now, and his feet followed the path to which they'd been trained. This bed haunted him in nightmares from which he woke up screaming in silence. The ebony footboard was smooth and cool beneath Draco's clammy hands, as he leaned over and braced himself against it, spreading his legs as he knew he was expected to do. It hurt more, that way, and his father knew it, lay the most sensitive parts of his body open to the sting of the blows. The hiss of leather against stone met his ears, drawing closer with Lucius's footsteps, and fading into silence so close to Draco that he cringed despite himself.  
  
"Eighteen lashes, then, if you are not going to heed my warnings against cowardice." Lucius's voice colder than ever.   
  
"Count."  
  
The first stripe of the whip landed lit Draco's back on fire; he was bleeding already, and the next seventeen blows were going to take the rest of his life to land. Gritting his teeth, Draco forced the word "one" from between his lips, and braced himself for the next lash.  
  
It landed lower, this time, and the next blow lower still - and each time, Draco choked out the appropriate number, praying that his voice would not crack of break or tremble. Five, six, seven… he heard his voice somewhere outside of his own head, and it sounded small and unfamiliar to his ears. The blood was weaving warm, stick trails down his legs, now, and every new blow landed upon an open wound... Ten, eleven, twelve. Lucius seemed determined to leave every inch of Draco's flesh below his waist and above his knees raw and bleeding; the heat was rising in his skin, his body's desperate attempts to begin healing before the onslaught had even ceased. thirteenth lash clipped sharply against the inside of his thigh, and Draco nearly gasped out the number. Fourteen and fifteen and sixteen, and his knees were threatening to give out beneath him… seventeen fell so hard that Draco reeled against the baseboard, and eighteen made his vision flash white.  
  
He leaned heavily against the bed when it was finally over, breathing hard and swallowing wave after wave of nausea that rolled through his stomach and boiled up into his throat. He hadn't cried out, he'd choked back all his tears, but if he threw up now he'd get whipped again twice over.  
  
This was only the beginning, and Draco knew it.   
  
"Do you understand the value of punctuality now, Draco, or must my point yet clearer still?"  
  
The dangerous slither of the leather whip over the floor behind him, again; Draco flinched and whispered, "I understand, sir."  
  
"I sincerely hope that you do." The hiss of Lucius's 's' was entirely serpentine. "Bed. Now. On your back."  
  
There was nothing warm or comforting about the smooth silk sheets of Lucius's bed. Draco closed his eyes very tightly as he slid onto it, cringing sharply as he lowered his weight onto the wide open lash marks and turning his face to the side, hiding it against the pillows as best he could. Once again, he could feel the cold grey eyes tracing the lines of his body, taking note of the shivering in his bones and the rose colored flush of humiliation beneath his delicate cheekbones. Draco tried very hard not to flinch as Lucius's weight sunk onto the bed next to him - he kept his face turned away, his eyes shut tight, and tried not to think about what else was going to happen to him. He barely heard his father's muttered jinx, but the effects were sickeningly familiar; for now he could not move his arms or legs, as though he'd been chained spread eagle to the bed with invisible bonds.  
  
"You seem to have forgotten quite a bit in your absence, Little Dragon," said Lucius, who seemed to be taking a divine sort of pleasure in watching Draco tremble against the sheets. "Look at you. Scared to death. Are you afraid, perhaps, that I've found out about something you've neglected to tell me?"  
  
If Draco's stomach hadn't been so busy turning, it would have shriveled up and vanished. There was no way that his father could know, no possible way…  
  
"No, sir," he whispered tightly.  
  
"And you're sure of this?" Almost lazily, Lucius flicked his wand at the boy; and quite suddenly there was something slithering over Draco's skin - something smooth and cold and scaly...  
  
A small, dark green serpent was coiling it's way around his calf, sliding smoothly up his leg. There was a soft yet decidedly dangerous hissing coming from it; it's silver eyes flashed as it slithered over Draco's hip, weaving back and forth across the silk-soft plane of his abdomen.  
  
Lucius couldn't know, couldn't know, no, never; not about that, not about *him*. Lucius couldn't possibly know how he touched Draco, kissed him… how he drew Draco into his private chambers at night and drown him in tenderness until dawn. His stomach tense and quivering beneath the curling of the snake, he bit his lip for a moment, then whispered, "Yes, sir. I'm sure."  
  
"You are a horrible little liar, Draco."  
  
A sharp, stabbing pain shot through his body from his navel out; the serpent had plunged it's fangs into him, locking it's jaws split-second around a tender strip of flesh before releasing it's hold and continuing it's slow, slithering path up - his chest, and back down. Draco cried out sharply, his fingers knotting around the bed sheets beneath him. The wound stung as though it were laced with salt, and he had to fight to keep his breathing even, fight to keep the tears from making it to his eyes. His entire body was covered in a fine sheen of cold sweat, now, and the snake's path over his skin was colder still; only the blood was warm, trickling slowly but surely over his stomach and down his side.  
  
"Do you think that I cannot tell when you are lying to me? Do you think that I cannot tell, just by looking at you, what a little whore you've been? Someone's had their hands on you, Little Dragon. They've left their scent on you." Abruptly, Lucius grabbed him by a handful of silken platinum hair, yanking Draco's face round to meet his own. "Who is it."  
  
"No one!" Draco whimpered, now thoroughly panicked, and the snake sank it's fangs like needles into the inside of his thigh. With another gasp and a buck of his hips, he tried to pull away from it. Lucius twisted the lock of hair in his grip, drawing his face down closer and hissing through gritted teeth.  
  
"You have one last chance, Little Dragon. Either you tell me who's bitch you've become, or I will personally quell your desires for any human being for a very long time. Now who… is it."  
  
Draco choked on another sob, tried in vain to turn his face away. The snake was between his legs, now, curling in a sickening pattern around the most tender places. He was still bleeding, still shaking, and now Lucius's face was only an inch from his. It seemed that if he opened his eyes, his father would be able to see right into them, glean the treasured secret from his mind. No matter what happened, what was done to him, Draco couldn't give that secret up. In a life structured by fear, riddled with pain and laced with neglect, those tender midnight moments were all that he had to live for; the moments when he was warm, and safe, and touched with a tenderness that he'd never known from any other living soul.  
  
"No--" but he hadn't even gotten the second word out before Lucius struck him hard across the mouth, and in the same moment the snake bit down between his legs. And this time Draco could not contain the scream of pain that rose in his throat and burst desperately from his lips. His back arched up and away from the bed, his jaw locked, and now he was struggling blindly against his invisible bonds as the wicked, conjured serpent sank it's teeth in again, and again…  
  
He never heard the counter jinx that finally brought the agonizing assault to an end. There was nothing but pain, now; pain and nausea and a desperate, paralyzing fear. It didn't matter now how angry he made his father by struggling - anything, anything to get away, to make it stop…  
  
He was alone on the bed, and the armoire door was creaking.  
  
The implement that Lucius came back with was, by far, the cruelest looking object that Draco had seen to date. A fairly long, fairly thin contraption made of dark, well-work steel and riddled with little round holes from top to bottom, and a rusting gear attacked to the thickest end of it. He knew exactly what it was; blinded by pain, he'd felt the horror of it before, but he'd never laid eyes on it until now. Wide eyed and shuddering, now, he whipped his head in a hopeless, soundless negating from side to side against the pillows, his lungs seeming to shrink inside his chest so that he could not draw a proper breath.  
  
Lucius did not bother to speak to him, anymore - he simply jerked Draco up from the mattress by his neck, spun him around, and slammed him back down so that his face cracked against the headboard of the bed in the process. The thick, coppery taste of blood flooded his mouth, and Draco pressed his face against the hot silk sheets, the scent of sweat burning cedar heavy in his nostrils.   
  
The invisible bonds held his hands down firmly on either side of his face, kept his knees wide apart as Lucius dragged Draco's hips up off the bed, fingernails digging deep into the skin. There would be no preparation, he knew - only cold hard steel inside of him, and those vile little teeth…  
  
Even so, it hurt worse than he remembered. The wicked instrument slid into him smoothly, but then the rusty gear ground into action, and the entire thing began to stretch, widen… Draco could feel his body tearing, feel the hard steel edges digging into him.  
  
And then the true torture; for through the holes came the wicked little spikes, snapping out as though sprung by a switchblade trigger and digging into him from the inside. They were not sharp enough to pierce the skin, right away - but Lucius gave the entire device a horrid twist, then another. Soon enough they would wear through the tender lining of his body, and the blood would come before the numbness did; Draco knew every moment of the nightmare by heart. There was nothing to be done now but scream; scream until his voice broke, until he coughed blood, until he finally collapsed, limp and shuddering and unable to fight anymore as his father tore him apart from the inside out.  
  
Draco had no idea how long it took, or how much blood he had lost; he only knew that when it was over, the charm that Lucius used to staunch the bleeding had no effect on the pain that throbbed through his guts and outward to the tips of his fingers and toes. He only knew that everything hurt and that there was nowhere to hide from it, no way to escape it. Draco curled up on his side when the bonds released him, burying his face in his arms as best he could. Sometimes if he was hurt this badly, when it was over, Lucius would allow him to cry himself to sleep right where he was, instead of forcing him back onto his feet and sending him away. He never touched Draco after, never comforted him if he let him stay, never even lay down beside him; but at least he didn't make him move, didn't make it hurt more…  
  
"Get up. Get out."  
  
Dragged to his feet by his hair before he could even flinch, Draco found himself thrown down hard on the cold marble floor a few feet from his discarded clothing. Trembling too hard to do more than drag his robe around him, he gathered up his pajamas in his arms and curled up against the foot of Lucius's chair for a moment to catch his breath.   
  
But Lucius kicked him hard in the back, sent him sprawling, and reaching down to grab another handful of the boy's spun silk hair, dragged him harshly by it the remaining distance to the door. Draco's sore, slender body slammed against the opposite wall of the hallway, with such force did Lucius eject him from the chamber. Stumbling for balance and clinging to the molding, he fought hard to keep his footing as the huge mahogany doors slammed shut behind him. If he collapsed here in the hall, Lucius was sure to find him before he came 'round again, and then it would happen all over again…  
  
It took nearly all of his remaining strength to get himself back to his own room. Tzench was nowhere to be found; Draco drew himself a glass of water from a jug beneath the window, tried to drink, then stumbled blindly into bed.   
  
Only now did he allow himself to cry.   
  
Curling up around a pillow and burying his face against it, Draco sobbed with all the breath that he could draw. He cried because it hurt, cried because he was scared, cried because there was no one to hold him, now, and sooth the pain even a little with gentle words and gentle hands. He cried because gentleness was all that he wanted, and the only person who had ever given it to him couldn't help him now. He cried because he wanted to go back to Hogwarts; back where someone stroked his hair, and called him beautiful, and stayed late with him in the Potions classroom when everyone else had left to give him a soft kiss after each class…  
  
Draco whispered "Severus" very softly into his pillow, and cried himself to sleep.  
  
-to be continued-  
  
*** 


	2. The Long Hard Road Out Of Hell

Chapter II : The Long Hard Road out of Hell  
  
[ colloquial title : Fly Away Home ]  
  
you're tearin' at my heartstrings  
  
let me fly away home...  
  
-Jack Williams-  
  
***  
  
He woke up to the scent of dried blood.  
  
The sun came creeping over the windowsill long before he was ready for; stretched its long, golden fingers through the gap in his bed curtains to stroke at his eyelids. The warmth felt good on his bruised face, but the dried blood around him was warming, too - a bitter, acrid aroma against the clean scent of bedclothes and heated wood.  
  
Draco pressed his eyes shut tighter against the light and the smell and the hollow feeling of the morning after.  
  
He was something close to comfortable, finally; cradled by the huge bed and the warm velvet blankets, he had finally cried himself into heavy and dreamless sleep. He knew that if he moved even the smallest bit, all the aches and pains would shoot back through his body as though he'd tripped an alarm system; but if he just lay here, very quietly, the pain was no more than a dull throbbing in his bones, a stiffness in his muscles and a bit of leftover nausea.  
  
He wondered how long it would take him to die, if he simply did not get up.  
  
Too long. Lucius would never allow him the peace of dying in his own bed. If Draco died, it would be violent. If Draco died, he would die screaming. His father would make him beg for death before he allowed him that blessed release. He would never be allowed to simply waste away here in blessed, blessed silence.  
  
Draco took a deep breath, braced himself for the pain, and shifted.  
  
A sharp burning down his back to his thighs, a throbbing between his legs, and a rawness inside of him that seemed to spread up into his stomach and outward. He had expected much worse. But there was blood all over him; flecked across his thighs and stomach, caked between his fingers, dried in thin russet rivulets over the side of his face. Draco cringed, but didn't cry out. His muscles felt like rubber; and when he opened his eyes, they met the sunlight with a throbbing somewhere behind his temples.   
  
He had to lay very still for a few more minutes before he could even think about moving again. He used them to think.  
  
He was going to die if he stayed here. Even though his father had charmed the worst wounds shut, he could steel feel the blood oozing from him, inside and out, slowly but surely. His head had hit the head board of the bed so hard that it was still numb just above his hairline. Draco lifted five shakey fingers to the spot, drew them back bloody. Still bleeding. Lucius would never heal him. Lucius liked it when he hurt - the worse, the better. Lucius wouldn't care if he killed him, so long as it hurt bad enough. Lucius had not laid a kind hand on him in sixteen years.   
  
And that's why the Slytherin Dungeon was heaven, wasn't it? That's why Draco was never warmer than in those cold, low slung rooms. Severus always kept a roaring fire in the hearth - a harmless oak fire that smelled good and clean and comforting - and his bed was piled with warm goosedown comforters and soft plush pillows. Draco slept there whenever he could, while he was at school; sneaking carefully out of his dorm after everyone else had fallen asleep, and knocking with that quiet, secret knock on the Potion Master's chamber door, and then swept into a sea of gentleness that seemed to go on forever, yet never lasted long enough. Draco had never been touched so tenderly in all his years. It had made a virgin of him all over again, this tenderness. His body, braced for the pain that always came from human contact, had not known how to react, at first; he'd flinched at the brush of unexpected fingers, shied from the hands that sought to carress his hair.   
  
Yes, terrifying in the beginning to be touched at all; but how he'd needed it, longed for it nonetheless. And Severus had been infinately patient with him; he didn't take offense when Draco pulled away, or whimpered in fear, or simply burst into tears on the spot when a hand brushed some particularly tender or well-abused part of his body. He soothed Draco through every second of it, at first - teaching him how to kiss, and return a carress, and how to relax when the panic began to well up inside of him. Inch by inch, he taught Draco how to trust.  
  
And oh, what those midnights did for his soul. He was whole again, in Severus's arms; dirty, yes, and tainted, maybe, but whole at least, and complete, and safe when he had never felt safe before. To fall asleep cradled against another warm human body... to rest his head against another chest, and close his eyes, and feel those strong yet slender arms around him - this was more than he ever could have imagined. Nothing could hurt him in those moments, nothing at all. It was Perfect.  
  
Draco took a deep, deep breath and forced his eyes open again. He had to get up. He had to get out of here.  
  
He woke up to the scent of dried blood.  
  
The sun came creeping over the windowsill long before he was ready for; stretched its long, golden fingers through the gap in his bed curtains to stroke at his eyelids. The warmth felt good on his bruised face, but the dried blood around him was warming, too - a bitter, acrid aroma against the clean scent of bedclothes and heated wood.  
  
Draco pressed his eyes shut tighter against the light and the smell and the hollow feeling of the morning after.  
  
He was something close to comfortable, finally; cradled by the huge bed and the warm velvet blankets, he had finally cried himself into heavy and dreamless sleep. He knew that if he moved even the smallest bit, all the aches and pains would shoot back through his body as though he'd tripped an alarm system; but if he just lay here, very quietly, the pain was no more than a dull throbbing in his bones, a stiffness in his muscles and a bit of leftover nausea.  
  
He wondered how long it would take him to die, if he simply did not get up.  
  
Too long. Lucius would never allow him the peace of dying in his own bed. If Draco died, it would be violent. If Draco died, he would die screaming. His father would make him beg for death before he allowed him that blessed release. He would never be allowed to simply waste away here in blessed, blessed silence.  
  
Draco took a deep breath, braced himself for the pain, and shifted.  
  
A sharp burning down his back to his thighs, a throbbing between his legs, and a rawness inside of him that seemed to spread up into his stomach and outward. He had expected much worse. But there was blood all over him; flecked across his thighs and stomach, caked between his fingers, dried in thin russet rivulets over the side of his face. Draco cringed, but didn't cry out. His muscles felt like rubber; and when he opened his eyes, they met the sunlight with a throbbing somewhere behind his temples.   
  
He had to lay very still for a few more minutes before he could even think about moving again. He used them to think.  
  
He was going to die if he stayed here. Even though his father had charmed the worst wounds shut, he could steel feel the blood oozing from him, inside and out, slowly but surely. His head had hit the head board of the bed so hard that it was still numb just above his hairline. Draco lifted five shaky fingers to the spot, drew them back bloody. Still bleeding. Lucius would never heal him. Lucius liked it when he hurt - the worse, the better. Lucius wouldn't care if he killed him, so long as it hurt bad enough. Lucius had not laid a kind hand on him in sixteen years.   
  
And that's why the Slytherin Dungeon was heaven, wasn't it? That's why Draco was never warmer than in those cold, low slung rooms. Severus always kept a roaring fire in the hearth - a harmless oak fire that smelled good and clean and comforting - and his bed was piled with warm goose down comforters and soft plush pillows. Draco slept there whenever he could, while he was at school; sneaking carefully out of his dorm after everyone else had fallen asleep, and knocking with that quiet, secret knock on the Potion Master's chamber door, and then swept into a sea of gentleness that seemed to go on forever, yet never lasted long enough. Draco had never been touched so tenderly in all his years. It had made a virgin of him all over again, this tenderness. His body, braced for the pain that always came from human contact, had not known how to react, at first; he'd flinched at the brush of unexpected fingers, shied from the hands that sought to caress his hair.   
  
Yes, terrifying in the beginning to be touched at all; but how he'd needed it, longed for it nonetheless. And Severus had been infinitely patient with him; he didn't take offense when Draco pulled away, or whimpered in fear, or simply burst into tears on the spot when a hand brushed some particularly tender or well-abused part of his body. He soothed Draco through every second of it, at first - teaching him how to kiss, and return a caress, and how to relax when the panic began to well up inside of him. Inch by inch, he taught Draco how to trust.  
  
And oh, what those midnights did for his soul. He was whole again, in Severus's arms; dirty, yes, and tainted, maybe, but whole at least, and complete, and safe when he had never felt safe before. To fall asleep cradled against another warm human body ... to rest his head against another chest, and close his eyes, and feel those strong yet slender arms around him - this was more than he ever could have imagined. Nothing could hurt him in those moments, nothing at all. It was Perfect.  
  
Draco took a deep, deep breath and forced his eyes open again. He had to get up. He had to get out of here.  
  
Life at Malfoy Manor had been nightmarish enough when all he'd known was pain; but now that he'd learned what gentleness was, each of Lucius's blows stung ten times as deep. Cruel hands. His father's hands. Those hands could stroke his face, or rub his back, or trail gently through his hair, but they did not. They hurt him on purpose, and now he didn't know why. It had been less than twenty-four hours since he'd left Hogwarts, and already he'd been beaten down to nothing - robbed of all the kindness that Severus lavished upon him, and left cold and empty in this nightmare Manor.  
  
He was going to die if he did not leave.  
  
He would go today, while Lucius was away. It was Thursday, which meant that his father would be in London until dark, working with the Ministry. He would go now, without letting so much as a house elf see him. He could simply pack up everything from his school trunk into pillow cases, which would be easier to carry. He could sneak down through the old servants stairs that were never used anymore, as they'd taken to biting ankles. A few stair-bites would be a small price to pay for anonymous freedom, and he could use the window on their bottom landing to slip out the back of the Manor. From there it would be almost easy to make it to the stables unseen. The Manor boasted a fine carriage house, and a team of eight Granian winged horses; tall, lithe animals, and very elegant, all with smooth, shining dapple gray coats and graceful dark gray wings. He would take his favorite of the lot, the one that he had loved since childhood and thought of very much as his own. It would be easier than flying by broomstick, as the horses all bore Disillusionment Charms to keep muggles from spotting them in the clouds, and it would require no magic - something that his father would surely sense had been done in his absence - to load everything he owned onto the horse with him and escape.  
  
It took him much longer than it should have taken any sixteen year old boy to get out of bed. His bones felt as though they had aged a century in the course of the night. Draco gasped when he finally set his weight on his feet; it was agony straightening his abdomen, now, after so many hours of remaining curled in the same position, allowing the bruises to tighten as they would.  
  
For a moment he simply stood very still - a dull ringing had commenced in his ears, rising in a smooth crescendo until it was a roar, and bringing with it a blanket of white that fell across his vision. His whole body was shaking, now; his legs could not support him any longer. Draco collapsed against the hard marble floor with a defeated whimper, his head spinning, his stomach turning over and over again...  
  
He barely managed to drag himself, hand over hand to the waste bin, before he threw up. The cold sweat of exertion had risen up all over his shuddering form, sending chills through him as he huddled back against the great stone wall of his bedroom. He had lost too much blood, this time. There was no way that he would make it all the way to the stables. A little rush of panic seized him, followed by a wave of despair. He was trapped here in this big, cold house, and there was no way that he was going to get away on his own. And Lucius would be back by nightfall. Nightfall. He had to get up, get moving, or it was going to happen all over again...  
  
His body screamed in silence as Draco forced himself to his feet again. His vision blurred, flashed white; but this time he clung to the edge of his dresser, leaning his weight into it and closing his eyes and battling the waves of nausea that rolled over him. He would not fall. He had to make it to the stables. To hell with his things - all he needed was his wand, and the horse. He had neither the time, nor the strength, to rescue anything but himself.  
  
Forcing his eyes into focus, Draco let go of the dresser and put one foot in front of the other. He made it four shaky, unbalanced steps across the floor before his knees gave out again - slamming against the stone floor with such force that two twin jets of pain shot up Draco's legs, through his hips, and buried themselves in his stomach. He choked on the nausea, coughed hard, and looked back at the dresser. It was further away than he had expected. Four steps were better than nothing.  
  
And so it began.   
  
Sometimes he only made it two steps. Sometimes he made it nearly a dozen. Inch by painful inch, Draco made his way across the Manor - collapsing when and where he had to, or clinging to the heavy moldings of the walls for support when he refused to let himself fall. More than once he lost consciousness, struggled back to it, and continued onward with a desperate determination that pushed his broken mind and body to their very limits. It took him the better part of an hour to make it to the biting staircase, which any healthy individual could have reached from his chambers in a matter of minutes. It took him another agonizing fifteen minutes of nips and bites and stumbling to reach the bottom of it. Time ebbed away from Draco as it did within the nightmare of his father's chambers - there was only this moment and the very moment after, when he forced himself forward again despite all odds through the window...  
  
The sun was high by the time he reached the stables, though it did not help to keep warm the chill winter landscape. The horses were inside, thank Merlin; and a hopeless relief washed over him as he finally dragged himself through the stable doors. Good, comforting smells washed over him - dust and hay and the clean, earthen smell of the animals themselves; the scent of leather from the tack in the corner, and warm sunlight on the wood shavings that bedded each spacious box stall. The only sounds were that of the birds and the horses; big, powerful bodies shifting, equine jaws grinding at stray wisps of hay, long tails snapping at flies with a reedy *swish*. Draco leaned against a feed bin and let his eyes adjust to the dim interior lighting.  
  
Only one of the great winged horses had it's head over the stall door; huge, gentle brown eyes peering most curiously down the aisle at Draco. Despite everything, he found a weak smile creeping to his lips. "Hello, Olivia," he whispered.  
  
The horse whuffled to him, pricking her silver ears at the sound of his voice and craning her long, graceful neck towards him. She nodded her head impatiently, and if Draco could have laughed, he would. In the most certain of equine terms, she was welcoming him home. Using the long feed bin along the wall for support, he made his way down the aisle to her stall.  
  
She stretched her nose out to meet him as he reached her; snuffling at his face neck for a moment before she gave him a decisive shove with her head. Luckily he caught himself before he fell - but now Draco was laughing despite the pain in his stomach, and rubbing her smooth, silver neck. "Yeah, I know, I was gone for too long, huh?" Olivia snuffled at his pockets for a treat in response.  
  
He didn't have anything for her, so he scooped a handful of sweet feed from the feed bin and offered it to her, closing his eyes and leaning against her neck as her soft, velveteen lips gobbled the treat from his upturned palm. He had always loved the horses; their quiet, honest ways and their tall, graceful bodies. These animals had ten times his size and strength, and yet they were passive, gentle, majestic with their liquid brown eyes and their powerful limbs and their languid, elegant way of moving. Olivia had always been his darling of the bunch - the most curious, the most stubborn, and also the most affectionate. She made a beautifully spirited lead horse under harness, and yet she had been placid and patient under saddle with him. He'd learned to ride her when he was only four.   
  
Draco brought her bridle down from it's peg, now, sliding it easily over her ears when she'd finished the grain. She took the bit easily, stood quietly as he buckled the noseband and throat latch, and promptly pawed at her stall door with a foreleg when he'd finished. She was obviously ready to go - but was he?  
  
It then occurred to Draco that he had absolutely no idea where he was going, except for Away. He'd never really thought about where he would run *to* - yet now that he did, he realized what his subconscious had been telling him all along. There was only one place in the world for him to go, right now - and that was back to Hogwarts.   
  
Could he get there from here? Draco didn't know how. He knew how to get to London, and maybe if he simply followed the train tracks from there ... but Lucius was in London, and where precisely in London Draco could never be sure. Too close. Too risky. He found himself wishing for a moment that Olivia had Thestral blood in her. At least she was fast. And wherever they went, they had to go quickly. Draco unlatched the stall door, and led the mare down the aisle to the far end, into the sunlight. She tossed her head when they got outside, snorting warm breath into the clean winter air. He hadn't saddled her, and so he led her over to one of the white washed paddock fences. It was hell, climbing up the slats and onto her back, but she stood very still and allowed him to do so awkwardly.  
  
Finally settled on her back, Draco sat up straight. However wounded, his body knew how to sit a horse, and it felt inexplicably wonderful to be up here, again - to look out on the world from between a pair of silver ears, and feel the warm, powerful body beneath him. It took only balance to keep his seat, and his sore muscles relaxed after the torturous marathon of escaping the manor house. Olivia turned her head and pricked her ears at some far off sound, shifted beneath him. Afternoon was fading too quickly. He had to go, and go now.   
  
Gathering up the worn leather reins and threading them by instinct between his pinkie and ring fingers, he clucked softly to the mare, and nudged her belly with his heels. He didn't need to ask twice. She moved forward at a trot, her hooves ringing against the frozen ground. He didn't urge her into the air, not yet - instead he kept to the tree line behind the stable, so as to keep out of clear view of the house.  
  
For a moment, Draco could almost pretend that everything was all right. The mare made everything all right. He and Olivia had gone for countless hacks through these fields and these woods. Whenever things at Malfoy Manor became unbearable, she had been his escape; he ruled the world from here atop her back, guiding her every hoofbeat with the slightest shift of his weight of tightening of his fingers upon her reins. He urged her into a canter, now; felt her collect beneath him, soften against the bit - then the surge of power, and the smooth, rocking three beat gait that spelled out f-r-e-e-d-o-m against the ground. Her strides were huge, devouring the meters between Malfoy Manor and whatever lay beyond it, now. Draco could feel her eagerness, the joy with which she stretched her legs after the long months spent primarily indoors.   
  
Leaning low against her neck, Draco tangled his fingers in her main and let her ease forward into a full gallop - gave her her head and let her run as fast as she pleased. Unlike most winged horses, Olivia did not take to their air every chance she received. She liked to run, and run fast - and the faster the better, right now, as far as he was concerned. "Go on, girl," he whispered into the wind. He didn't care where they were going, yet, and the mare was as happy to be free as he was. She knew, as well as he did, that they were not going back.   
  
They were coming to the edge of the property, now; although Lucius owned a copious amount of land surrounding the Manor, a high stone wall separated the estate proper from the farmlands beyond. He gave her another soft nudge with his heels, leaned forward.  
  
And off they went; over the wall and up, up...  
  
The higher they rose, the colder it got; Draco huddled against the mare's mane for warmth, peered down through the clouds, and gauged his direction. Once he'd aimed Olivia north, he simply hung on; exhaustion had caught up with him. He didn't know how to get to Hogwarts, but he knew it was north. Leaning against the mare's neck and closing his eyes, Draco tried to drive them towards Hogwarts by sheer will alone.  
  
But the Granian didn't need his willpower to aid her on her course. She'd flown it a thousand times in the carriage, bringing Lucius on trips to and from the school. And she flew it now, again, with Draco clinging desperately to her mane, his strength ebbing by the minute, the cold biting into him...  
  
It took the better part of three hours to reach Hogwarts, which gave Draco an ample amount of time to think. Of course Lucius would come looking for him at Hogwarts, but where else could he go? He was sixteen and on his own, with nothing save his robes, his wand, and the stolen animal that carried him ever onward. Yes, Lucius would come for him; and Draco wouldn't go with him. He would stand his ground and shake his head and refuse come hell or high water, and as long as he was under Hogwarts' roof, his father couldn't hurt him. Still unsure if he would even make it to the school, he could only pray, now, and cling to consciousness in the frozen December night.  
  
But with the wind whipping in his ears, he was slipping away - and though his fingers flung tight to Olivia's mane, Draco's mind was burrowing into a deep, warm bed in his beloved dungeons. Severus was kissing his hair, and Draco wanted to explain to him that he couldn't really be here, no, he was trapped in his own bed in Malfoy Manor...  
  
Their landing jarred him; he'd nearly lost his seat on the horse. Only now did he realize that he'd lost consciousness; it seemed nearly impossible to open his eyes, but when he did, he was met with the sight of the great, looming, well-lit castle at the top of the hill. For a moment it seemed that it must be a mirage; their chances of ending up on this very lawn were so slim that they seemed damned near impossible. Somehow, against the greatest odds, he had dreamed his way home.   
  
The trip up the hill was surreal. Draco had all that he could do to simply hold on. He had never been so cold in his life, and all his muscles seemed to have cramped into place - he was sure that if they had not, he would have fallen ages ago. Sheer will alone kept him on the mare's back, step by step... the blood had long ago frozen in rivulets to his face, and he was so very dizzy... the front doors loomed closer, Draco shuddered. Ice on his eyelashes. So hard to think anymore. Hard to breathe...  
  
He tried to dismount when they reached the great front doors; fell hard, the giant iron door knocker catching him in the mouth as he went down on the stone steps. Olivia looked as decidedly concerned as an equine is capable of looking. The blood was streaming freely from his head, again, and now his mouth was bleeding too. Too cold. Too sore. The doors seemed a thousand feet high, when one was huddled at the base of them and looking up. He couldn't stand up again, not even with something to hold on to. Raising one pale, trembling hand, Draco pounded on the doors with all the strength left in him; pounded until he simply could not move anymore.  
  
He lay his head back against the stone wall beside the doorway, curling up and ducking his head away from the bitter wind. Snow had just started to fall in delicate white flakes against the now darkened sky. Draco watched them with glazed and fading eyes, his mind growing as numb as his fingertips until he couldn't feel anything, anymore...  
  
Blinding flash of warmth, light. Voices above him. The huge wooden doors had opened, and now a hundred things were happening at once; someone was yelling at someone else to fetch Madam Pomfrey, another voice said to keep the students in the Great Hall a bit longer, and would someone please catch the horse and bring it to Hagrid? Too many voices all speaking at once, and the torchlight was blinding.  
  
And then a pair of strong, lean arms lifted him up, and a familiar voice said, "Step back, now, I've got him."  
  
Draco snuggled against the gaunt chest as best he could, let his eyes fall closed and his head fall sideways against Snape's shoulder. He was safe. The lights and the voices became a soft, steady blur around him - but Severus was real. Severus was carrying him. Severus was whispering to him beneath the rush of voices that it would be okay, that everything would be okay. And Draco believed him.  
  
He let himself slide into unconsciousness before they reached the hospital wing. He never felt Snape lie him down on the cot, or smooth his hair back from his forehead. Finally safe from the horrors of Malfoy Manor, Draco felt nothing at all.  
  
*** 


End file.
